Tinks Summer 2006 Tour – Final Thoughts

[TinkTatoo]

Tinks Summer 2006 Tour – Final Thoughts

Cast

Me - 44 Chief planner loves all things Disney
DH - 50 Designated driver can’t wait for Vero Beach
DS – 9 Hunting for Yu-Gi-Oh Cards (again)
DD – 8 Minnie’s number 1 fan also loves Vero Beach


Well here we are nearly 4 weeks later. I’ve finally finished the trip reports – it was a mammoth task but one I enjoyed doing. So what were the highs and lows of this trip.

Where we stayed

Sunset Lakes
We really liked it here – although it is only a couple of minutes from the development we stayed at last year it could be a million miles away. It’s a mixture of residential and holiday lets and the development has a quiet rule between 10pm and 8am. It meant that we weren’t woken up by people using their pools at midnight (as happened to us last year) It was lovely in the early morning to just sit and look out over the lake and watch the sun rise.

Old Key West
Another oasis away from the theme park madness. It is spread out with lots of little lakes dotted around and it is lovely to drive back to the resort at night and see lamps lit at the villa windows. The units are large and our 2 bed unit didn’t feel cramped after coming from a villa.

Vero Beach
This is now a firm part of our holiday plans and we find the few days here so relaxing. The resort it right on the beach and we can easily spend the entire day going between the pool and the ocean. Just remember to bring plenty of suntan lotion and something for the No-See-Ums.

Boardwalk Villas
This place had a different feel to OKW but was equally as nice. We liked the feeling here of being right in the action with the Boardwalk right outside and the boats to take you to MGM and Epcot. The rooms were smaller than OKW and we had a very long walk to get to our room but this wouldn’t stop us staying here again and we plan to spend more time here in 2008.

Where we ate
DS’s autism meant we spent more time that we would have liked in places like Golden Corral. The food suited him and we could get in and he could be eating immediately. I would have liked to try lots of different places but at the end of the day GC suited our needs and if you go at off peak times it’s not a bad experience.

We had a great Chinese takeaway from China-1 and would get one of these again. We also got to go to another favourite of ours – Sweet Tomato, this makes such a change from fast food and is great value.

DDP – it was great to experience the DDP but we soon realised that a lot of the Disney restaurants didn’t have anything to suit DS. We have cancelled it from our Christmas trip and scaled back on our restaurants choices – relying on off site dining more.

We loved Crystal Palace, Concourse Steak house, 1900 PF and Chef Mickey’s and will visit these again

We weren’t as keen on Hollywood & Vine and Le Cellier but we would go back again and we liked the Cape May Clam Bake but it had nothing for DS so we wouldn’t go back.

We didn’t like Garden Grill or Donald’s Breakfastosaurus and wouldn’t go back to these.


What we did
We did all the usual Disney parks but spent more time doing shows / rides we hadn’t done before – which was fun. The same for Universal and Seaworld. We loved our Dine with Shamu package and enjoyed seeing all the Seaworld shows.

DS’s autism means that we cant hit the ground running and not stop until we get home. We need to take breaks from the parks and have days when we do no more than shopping and swimming in the pool. Going for a month meant we were able to do this without compromising any of the things that we wanted to do.


Who we met
We were lucky to meet three great sets of cyber friends and their families and enjoyed meeting them all and we would be delighted to meet them again.

DD hit it off instantly with Craig’s DD’s and I can’t even begin to explain how much that helped her with her Aspergers.

The lows
There weren’t really that many. The journey is one, as we do longer than 14 nights, there are no direct flights from Ireland. Flying indirect means it is a very long trip (even without any delays) DD is not a good flyer and DS’s has started to become anxious on journeys so it’s a trying time for all of us.

Sometimes DS gets sensory overload and can get very agitated and at times like these you need to take a step back and let him chill out. He usually gets over it but it can be hard to deal with at the time.

The Highs
We had a fantastic trip and were lucky with the weather. There was hardly any rain and we were only affected by it on our last day when the kids couldn't swim at the Boardwalk until much later.

We are lucky to be going back again at Christmas and it seems a bit surreal to have the cases out with some of our holiday stuff in them – instead of packing it all away until next summer.

Thanks for taking the time to read these trippies – I’m off now to catch up on all the ones that have been posted recently. I’ll leave you with a few of my favourite photo’s.

 

[wils]

Thanks for your epic trip report - I have really enjoyed reading it

Best wishes to you, your DH and the kids

 

[fizz13]

well I have just read the whole thing, took me a couple of hours on and off toady I can tell you , and i wanted to sincerely thank you for sharing your holiday, it takes an awful lot of work to put together a trippie, especially of such length, and i just hope your house isn't too negelcted for our sakes! I thought you did incredibly well to get as much done as you did and it sounds like you had a great balance of rest and fun which was important for your DS. You lucky thing, getting to do it all again in a couple of months!

I really enjoyed sharing your holiday with you and hope you will honour us with another trippie after Xmas, well done

 

[TinkTatoo]

..... i just hope your house isn't too negelcted for our sakes! ......

LOL - so true. I'm sad to have finished the trippies as now I'll actually have to clean the house

 

[Cyrano]

It's been great to read what you most enjoyed about your holiday and what you would not do again.

Hear hear to another trippie after Christmas trip

 

[jns]

Thank you so much for sharing your family holiday with us all
A great report

Loved the photos

 

[ely3857]

It has been a great read. Some lovely pictures aswell. Not sure I could cope with all that moving but it seemed like you had a great trip



Jodie

 

[TinkTatoo]

..... Not sure I could cope with all that moving but it seemed like you had a great trip ......

I used to think that - but it's actually not too bad. We have the bulk of the holiday at the start and when we leave our first accommodation a lot of the stuff can be packed away as it is not needed until we get home. We then have only a couple of small bags which are easy to unpack.

Changing accommodation makes it feel like you are having a mini holiday within your holiday

 

[Tammy Stringer]

Great report. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

We also love Vero Beach and Boardwalk - yet to try OKW but will definitely try it sometime in the future

Tammy

 

[Minniespal]

I've really enjoyed reading your trip reports ~ Thanx for sharing them.

 

[wicket2005]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[JohnW]

Well, that was a marathon read over the last couple of days, but it was well worth it!!! thanks for taking the trouble to write these, they really were a great read.

thanks!!!

 

[jjk]

Really enjoyed reading your reports. Thanx for sharing

 

[florida sun]

Lovely reports, I have really enjoyed reading them and seeing your wonderful pictures, thank you so much for sharing it with us

 

[Pootle]

Changing accommodation makes it feel like you are having a mini holiday within your holiday

That's the way I feel too, oh, and btw my DVC 'homes' are OKW, VB and BWV so I enjoyed reading your reports very much

 

[JohnnySharp2]

A pleasure to read your comments as always